• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta June 29, 2022
London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty June 29, 2022
G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance June 29, 2022
Soaring Fertilizer Prices Could Deliver ‘Silver Lining’ For Emissions, But Farmers Struggle to Limit Use June 26, 2022
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate & Society Culture

Sorry, Trump: You Can’t Set Off a Nuclear Bomb to Stop a Hurricane

August 27, 2019
Reading time: 2 minutes

Damien Connor/YouTube

Damien Connor/YouTube

 

Sorry, Trump—firing a nuclear weapon is not the way to stop a raging hurricane or tropical cyclone in its path.

You wouldn’t think a small taste of a global apocalypse would rate as a potential solution to severe storms made worse by climate change. But apparently, the former reality TV star currently occupying the White House “has suggested multiple times to senior Homeland Security and national security officials that they explore using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes from hitting the United States,” Axios reports.

Trump has since denied the account. But Axios cites sources “who have heard the president’s private remarks and been briefed on a National Security Council memorandum that recorded those comments.”

“I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?” Trump said during one White House security briefing, according to a witness who paraphrased the remarks. “They start forming off the coast of Africa. As they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?”

The Axios story includes detail on what happened next.

“Asked how the briefer reacted, the source recalled he said something to the effect of, ‘Sir, we’ll look into that’,” the U.S. news and opinion site writes. “Trump replied by asking incredulously how many hurricanes the U.S. could handle and reiterating his suggestion that the government intervene before they make landfall.”

At that, the briefer “was knocked back on his heels,” Axios recounts, citing the same source. “You could hear a gnat fart in that meeting. People were astonished. After the meeting ended, we thought, ‘What the f—? What do we do with this’?”

As it happens, “why don’t we try to destroy tropical cyclones with nukes?” is one of the FAQs to be found on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) website. But NOAA is emphatic that any attempt to intercept a hurricane with a nuclear warhead would be “devastating” in its collateral effects, beginning with radioactive fallout, while doing nothing whatsoever to halt the storm. With meticulous thoroughness, the agency explains the physics of trying to use explosives against a full-blown, developed hurricane that is “equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes,” concluding  that “brute force interference” just “doesn’t seem promising”.Back in the real world, Tropical Storm Dorian is building to hurricane strength and bearing down on Puerto Rico, which has yet to recover from the devastation wrought in 2017 by Hurricane Maria.



in Culture, Energy Politics, International Security & War, Severe Storms & Flooding, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

London Eye UK England
Cities & Communities

London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

June 29, 2022
120
Number 10/flickr
International Agencies & Studies

G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance

June 29, 2022
142
AJEL / Pixabay
Food Security

Windfall Tax on Food, Fossil, Pharma Giants Would Raise $490B to Solve ‘Catastrophic’ Food Crisis: Oxfam

June 29, 2022
57

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Keith Hirsche

Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta

June 29, 2022
392
François GOGLINS/wikimedia commons

Corrosion Problem Shutters Half of France’s Nuclear Reactors

June 29, 2022
223
David/flickr

U.S. Supreme Court Expected to Gut Emission Controls as Climate Scientists Petition for Plan B

June 26, 2022
1.2k
Danielle Scott/flickr

Advocate Urges Ottawa to Intervene Before Ontario Builds Highway 413

June 29, 2022
128
Number 10/flickr

G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance

June 29, 2022
142
London Eye UK England

London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

June 29, 2022
120

Recent Posts

AJEL / Pixabay

Windfall Tax on Food, Fossil, Pharma Giants Would Raise $490B to Solve ‘Catastrophic’ Food Crisis: Oxfam

June 29, 2022
57
futureatlas.com/flickr

Ottawa Demands Deeper Fuel Emissions Cuts, Offers Fossils a Double-Dip on Tax Breaks

June 29, 2022
77
Province of B.C./flickr

Comox Joins Municipalities Seeking Ban on New Gas Stations

June 29, 2022
75
/Piqsels

Refocus Agriculture Spending to Cut Emissions, Boost Productivity, OECD Urges Governments

June 29, 2022
28
Jimmy Emerson, DVM/flickr

Public Vigilance Key to Protecting Greenbelts for Climate Resilience, Report Finds

June 29, 2022
35
Miguel V/Wikimedia Commons

Forests Fall Short of Full Carbon Storage Potential, Study Finds

June 29, 2022
62
Next Post
tpsdave / Pixabay

High Arctic Melting Stores Carbon in Glacier-Fed Rivers

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}